Unfortunately, on the first of February, my gelding passed away relatively unexpectedly. I say relatively unexpectedly largely because he did suffer from a stroke eight years ago, leaving him blind and deaf on his right side. He was also just about a month short of reaching his 32 birthday, which is 90 in horse years. Because of this, I really have never shared images of him publicly, and likely will still refrain from doing so because of him looking visually quite rough after that stroke. Internet people are very quick in passing judgement calls, and they will never actually know the context or how I gave the best care of him as I could realistically do.

Now, this isn't the first time I have lost a horse. However this one is harder for me than the others since I used to ride and show him. When you are in that element, you have to form a bond with your horse. Essentially, you become the same mind in two bodies. You feel what they feel. In a lot of ways, we were quite similar to each other, my trainer even saying we were born from the same mold. The reason how I got him was largely due to his size. While he was a quarter horse, which are typically somewhat smaller than most, he was about 16.2 hands tall, and extremely built (to the point where he could of made a very good dressage horse ironically). He was just so big, that the usual lesson girls just didn't have long enough legs queue him, hence why he was practically given away to me due to my long legs. Despite how large he was, he was pretty much always on the bottom of any pecking order in a herd. Honestly, he was just too lazy to bother competing for a higher rank, so it was funny how a 14.2 hand mare would boss around this absolute unit of a horse. This is made more ironic since he was originally supposed to have been a stud for reining horses, which prioritize smaller and quick horses. I presume one of the major reasons why he was originally earmarked was that he had a very laidback and easygoing personality, which is something you want in a stud for safety purposes. While he wasn't really the best possible show horse, it did make things a bit easier for my family since while my sister was training with and showing her horse, so I could essentially tag along with my sister's lessons and shows as well. A major issue I had was that while I was very comfortable around horses when I was a kid, I went to a summer camp that largely ended up traumatizing me around horses by overly explaining all the different ways I could die, making me loose a ton of confidence around them. Horses are able to sense your emotions, so if you are nervous, they are nervous. So I did have to get through all that trauma while learning with my gelding. It took some time, but I was able to bond and work with him effectively. We were definitely buds for life.

Still, even after my sister lost interest in showing horses, I always felt duty-bound to continue to take care of them. My gelding was my best buddy, and l just couldn't just abandon him. After college, taking care of them were directly my responsibility, and that became my priority focus for the past five years.

A lot of what went into designing my sona Fus was based off of my gelding. While I wasn't a sorrel like he was, the reason why Fus is more of a reddish shade of bay rather than brown comes from him. Also, the thin stripe facial marking was partially inspired from my gelding as well. He was very much a part of me, and so I had to represent that in my character.

I will state that the past few days since the last journal I posted have been extremely rough. One of my cats unexpectedly passed away on Jan 28, and one of my mares was mildly foundering (which she has mostly recovered from thankfully). A flock of black vultures that killed half of my family's herd of goats just a year ago showed back up. This is on top of having to help with my mother and her critical health condition which I talked about in the previous journal. Yes, it is indeed a very rough time. Despite all that I am still going to be okay, and I expect I will still remain strong no mater what. Loss is inevitable, but that doesn't mean you need to let it take you down. I'm certainly going to miss my big buddy, but I am also glad he is at peace.